In the field of, for example, manufacture of a semiconductor device, a plasma processing apparatus that performs an etching process or a film forming process by activating plasma on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer has been used.
In such a plasma processing apparatus, a configuration is known in which a magnetic field is formed in a processing space by a magnet provided around a processing chamber to control the plasma in the processing space. See, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-86580. Further, there is known a technology in which a magnetic field is formed in a portion to which gas is exhausted from the processing chamber by a magnet to prevent the plasma from being passed while allowing the gas to pass, thereby trapping the plasma in the processing space. See, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-514386.
In the plasma processing apparatus as described above, the plasma is controlled or trapped in the processing space by a magnetic field formed within the processing space.
In the meantime, since a collective etching on a multilayered structure recently becomes a main stream in the semiconductor device manufacturing field, it is necessary to perform plural processings in a single processing chamber. Therefore, it is required to accurately control the plasma according to the individual processing conditions.